If you haven’t heard by now, the Clintons have wealthy friends; VERY wealthy friends. And they show their friendship in many ways, but mostly through giving them money; LOTS of money. No secret here. Also no secret is that Bill and Hillary will do just about anything for their friends; change their vote in Congress, steer lucrative government contracts their way; make sure they get nice shiny new bombers and missiles and other military hardware that her foreign friends think they may like to play with. Friends like that you can’t put a price tag on except, actually, you can.

You Gotta Friend in Me

Through the Clinton Foundation, Super PACs, Shell Corporations in the Cayman Islands and any number of other dodges and subterfuges that elude even the most diligent forensic accountants, Bill and Hillary shift money around the nation and around the world like your grandpa shifts checkers on a checkerboard. Because I like to keep it simple, however, today let’s just look at the top dozen contributors to Hillary’s current primary election campaign. Now this is the list as reported a short while back, so no doubt the list has grown much bigger and the rankings may have changed since last reported. It also does not take into account speaking fees, super PAC money, Clinton Foundation donations, in kind donations, influence peddling, or any other back door ways of obtaining lucre, filthy or otherwise. So these contributors, whom I call the Dirty Dozen, are but a small tip of the iceberg of the Clinton Cash Machine. In fact, I have every confidence that these same donors are also giving far more money through other avenues than straight to her campaign; but like I said, I wanted to keep it simple.

So here they are, The Dirty Dozen:

Emily’s List……………………….907,510

Citigroup…………………………..891,500

DLA Piper………………………….856,873

Goldman Sachs……………………831,523

J P Morgan Chase…………………801,380

Morgan Stanley……………………765,202

University of California………….686,509

Time Warner……………………….603,170

Skadden, Arps et al……………….562,182

Coring Inc…………………………..492,750

Kirkland & Ellis…………………….491,066

Paul, Weiss et al……………………430,919

Now, on this list are the usual suspects: Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan, Morgan Stanley; and considering how much they give Goldwater Girl Hillary an hour to speak at their meetings (where are the transcripts Hillary?) these are, comparatively, modest sums for getting THEIR CANDIDATE elected. Of course, as noted before, these are the outright campaign contributions, not any of the dark money donations.

Of special note is the fact that one these big money donors is Time Warner, the media conglomerate, whose subsidiary is CNN, the cable news giant. So, when the CNN folks pretend to be objective and then give Bernie fifteen minutes of news coverage to hours for Hillary, we should not be too surprised. Also, when they have a conga line of “commentators” asking why Bernie just doesn’t give up and cede the race to the heir apparent to the throne, this too should be taken for the simpering attempt to control the message in this election that it is.

Time Warner, along with other media giants, is a BIG (or as Trump would say HUUUGE) backer of the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP, that really awful giveaway to multinational corporations which will undermine national sovereignty (and all local laws the corporations don’t like) as well as transfer more high paying US jobs overseas to nations where they’ll become starvation wage jobs, as well as further hurting the US balance of trade and indirectly increase the Federal deficit. So once Slick Hillary assumes the mantle of power, expect the TPP deal to slide through like a case of diarrhea due to Asian Flu. Did I mention that this and other so-called “Free Trade” deals have nothing to do with trade and are anything but free?

At the top of the list is EMILY’s List, a Pro-Choice, pro-Gay and Transgender, pro-Democratic Party, Feminist organization, dedicated to getting women elected to public office. They bill themselves as a Progressive. So, at first glance Emily’s List is a perfect fit for Pro-LGBT, Pro-Progressive, Vote for Me Because I’m a Woman Hillary. No Progressive Democrat, male or female, could quibble with this group donating to get a Democrat elected, right? Wrong.

According to one media pundit, “basically every Democratic woman candidate is petrified to speak publicly about EMILY’s List’s shenanigans.” Evidently, whenever they give to a candidate’s race, there is an unspoken requirement that they hire a certain media consulting firm, whose president just happens to be the wife of EMILY’s List Campaign Director! The donated money must be spent on the beltway media firm, whose performance is reported to be something less than stellar and who some candidates have blamed for their losing the election.

Apparently liberal candidates are forced to go along with the scam because EMILY’s List is working hand in glove with senior Democratic Party officials to fleece candidate’s campaigns. Obviously, a few high powered party establishment operatives are benefiting from this scam at the expense of the Progressive wing of the party; I wonder who they could be, Bill and Hillary?

More curious on the Dirty Dozen list is the University of California, weighing in at more than three quarters of a million dollar donation. It is ethically dubious even for a private university to contribute to a political campaign; it is even worse for a PUBLIC university to do so. A “Fact Sheet” distributed by U. of C. in fact denies that the school makes any political contributions or funds any political action committees. They do, however, say that “sometimes organizations that track campaign contributions, such as http://opensecrets.org, take the official data provided by the FEC about campaign contributions and report by demographic breakdown, such as by industry or employer” and UC characterize such listings as “misleading.” So technically, no, the University of California did not directly give; but some pundits note that there is a “revolving door” between political lobbyists and government officeholders and the members of UC administration and the University does “track” bills in Congress as well as any Executive Branch’s proposed rules and regulations which may affect the university and higher education in general. Also, there are political operatives who do “bundling” of UC employee contributions, plus there is the dark world of PACs, who are legally separate from their beneficiary organization, but who unofficially coordinate their activities with it. So the truth here is, let us say, somewhat murky.

Then we have the big money law firms. Hillary is a lawyer; they’re lawyers; what could be more natural, right?

Up near the top is DLA Piper, a GLOBAL multinational law firm, with offices in over 30 countries; it is the largest law firm in the world with billions in revenue; virtually every lawyer in the firm is a multi-millionaire. Just a bunch of poor ol’ country lawyers. It should come as no surprise that its legal staff has included, not just US senators and cabinet members, but former Prime Ministers and other high international Muckey-Mucks. According to the watchdog, Above the Law, “the firm makes for great copy; there’s always something funny, ridiculous, or salacious going down over there.” This includes accusations of over-billing its filthy rich clientele (no tears here over that) and the firm’s involvement with a fossil fuel executive who claimed to be working for the CIA in order to get into the panties of two Khazakh women, whom he had “rescued” from a brothel (or was it a seraglio?), as well as more serious scandals over the years.

Skadden Arps is perhaps not so colorful as DLA Piper, but it too is an international law firm with tentacles firmly in the Washington establishment, doing lobbying for major corporations and with a notable tilt towards Democratic politics. Love ya Hill baby.

Paul, Weiss is another lobbying law firm with headquarters in New York City but major offices in Washington and overseas. Besides buttering up pols such as Bill & Hill, they do entertainment law and manage corporate mergers and takeovers, in addition to the occasion pro bono good deed, such as representing detainees held in durance vile in Gitmo.

Kirkland & Ellis is similarly a heavy hitter law firm who do entertainment and corporate law; they went to bat for BP when the oil giant polluted the entire Gulf Coast and got some of its workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill fiasco. They didn’t clean up the heavy crude, but did try to clean up the legal mess for their multinational client. They trend toward Dems, being a major backer of Obama in 2008 and have their own PAC to distribute additional largesse. Apparently they want to get in Hillary’s good graces before she becomes the Anointed One.

There are, of course, very many more law firms and lobbyists on the Hillary hit list; we have only looked at the tip of the iceberg here. Where the real influence peddling with Bill & Hill goes on is in the murkier nether regions of the Clinton empire, namely the Clinton Foundation and the spiders webs of PAC’s and other organizations. Of course, as the email and Panama Paper scandals unfold, more will be revealed; that’s when the real fun begins.

As one Repugnican pundit has observed, on the campaign circuit Hillary Clinton travels around with two jets; one for Hillary and her entourage, and one for her baggage.

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About Christopher Kiernan Coleman

I am a freelance author, historian and observor of events past, present and future. I received my bachelors degree at St. Anselm College and pursued my graduate work at the University of Chicago. I currently has six books in print, including one about Abraham Lincoln. My latest book in print is Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife, published by University of Tennessee Press. I have also published numerous articles in the popular press as well as scholarly journals.
I have additional book projects in progress, including one which looks at the origins of mechanized warfare and the roots of modern Islamic fundamentalist politics, as well as several projects dealing with Dark Age and Arthurian history and archaeology.